Southern Comfort
by totorostories
Summary: O/S Alice and the girls watch from afar as the guys play baseball, until one day Jasper finally takes off his catcher's mask and they see each other for the first time.


"God bless baseball," I told the two women on each side of me in a sigh. Rose chuckled and took a sip of her Corona.

"Can I get an 'amen'?"

"On my right, my other best friend, Bella, snorted and then nodded. "Amen."

By all means, I never had considered myself a religious person. My mother had forced me to attend Sunday school as a child - though, I'm pretty sure that was to impress all the high society friends that she had made once deciding to remarry. My stepfather came from big money, everyone in his family was a lawyer.

That had been several years ago now. Ages, it seemed. Currently 22 years old, I found myself caught up in the madness of no longer being a child, yet still rather clueless about who I was and who I wanted to become. The nice thing about it all was that unlike high school, college had provided me with some great friends who didn't get easily jealous about my curves or spiky dark hair.

They both had curves of their own and hair that covered down passed their shoulders. Rose was the type that would have taken a butcher knife to anyone who dared mess with her lovely golden locks. And Bella, well, she just wasn't a worrier.

"He doesn't know what he's doing to me, Alice," Rose whined in a murmur, throwing down her magazine and lowering her sunglasses a tad on her nose. I followed her line of sight to the man currently throwing fastballs toward the catcher. That was the person I could never seen to get a glimpse of, always sporting his mask. Emmett McCarty on the other hand, had decided to unbutton his shirt a tad due to the heat, of course.

Even though it was 97 degrees out, I couldn't help giggling and then rolling my eyes.

Bella started laughing with me until something caught her attention and she made a strange sort of sound - something similar to a cough or throat catch. I smirked in her direction.

"What was that, dear?"

"Nothing," came the innocent reply. My gaze flitted over past hers this time, toward the middle. Sure enough, Edward Cullen was lazily running a hand through his hair. His ball cap was tossed on the grass behind him. Out of all the men on the team, Edward seemed to have the most focus. Bella had his movements on the field memorized. The position of short-stop had suddenly become very interesting when she set her sights on him. I had to hand it to her though, he was a great player with incredible speed.

"Damn him, he's biting his bottom lip, you guys! You know what? Yes, they do know. They know exactly what they're doing."

Rose hummed in reply, never bothering to remove her stare from the pitcher's mound.

"You have both been completely zapped into piles of mush, congratulations. You know, there was a time-"

In my ranting, I hadn't bothered to stop and look up. The mysterious catcher had finally offered to grace the world with a peek of his face. Or maybe it was just that I was usually unlucky in my timing. After all, I didn't bother to stay as late as Rose and Bella, I didn't have anyone to admire.

Until now.

"Who the hell is that?" I hissed at my two friends. I couldn't take my eyes off him. It was like being hypnotized.

"Hey Alice, you might want to close your mouth. I think you're swallowing flies," Bella laughed, patting my shoulder.

"Well I think it's safe to say that someone...is twitterpated," Rose crossed her arms.

"Never mind, never mind, I asked you a question!" I seemed to be barely aware that I was nagging her shoulder, making her wobble as much as a bowl of Jello.

"That, dear Alice, is Jasper Whitlock." Internally I rolled the name around in my head. _Whitlock, Whitlock_...it had a special type of ring to it, something you could click on your tongue.

And god, was he fine. He had shoulder length sandy blond hair, but it was covered by his ball cap. When he looked up, Jasper looked over to the bleachers at us. He had grabbed a bat and was doing the typical move that every player mimicked, calling out the shot as Babe Ruth did in the old days.

Now, he was just looking at me.

His eyes were gray, alive, as though a small storm brewed behind them.

A hand waved carelessly in front of my face. "Alice...Alice?"

Those eyes reminded me of music...

"Jazz," I murmured.

"She's lost it," Bella snapped somewhere beside me. I couldn't tell where I was anymore. Most people would think that the connection would be lost when one turned away. But the connection wasn't lost as he turned away, a devilish smirk playing at his lips, and swung the bat gracefully before it cracked against the ball. The sound echoed far around and then away. I watched for just a beat before turning back to Jasper, who stood still watching me.

"Run, you asshole!" Emmett screamed. "That was a homerun!"

But he didn't. I could hear Edward walking passed the fence and up to Jasper. He attempted the same thing that someone had on my seconds before, and waved a hand in front of Jasper's face.

"Okay well, Alice, you go ahead and just...get comfortable there. Bella and I are going to take off," Rose called to me.

"You ladies need a ride?" Emmett asked as Rose gathered her things. My brain hadn't tuned in to see what time it was or when the voices finally died out. But they did and I slowly got up and walked over to the fence to lean against the wire and lace my fingers through the holes.

The gravel crunched next to me and I turned to meet his gaze.

"Hello," Jasper breathed softly.

"You kept me waiting a while, you know," I laughed. Something passed through his eyes.

"Would you like to get some ice cream? There's a 50's parlor nearby."

"Sure," the word slurred out of me as I grabbed his hand in mine, my very own southern comfort.


End file.
